Review potential security issues with Google Security Operations

This document describes how to conduct searches when investigating alerts and potential security issues using Google Security Operations.

Before you begin

Google Security Operations is designed to work exclusively with the Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers.

Google recommends upgrading your browser to the most current version. You can download the latest version of Chrome from https://www.google.com/chrome/.

Google Security Operations is integrated into your single sign-on solution (SSO). You can log in to Google Security Operations using the credentials provided by your enterprise.

  1. Launch Chrome or Firefox.

  2. Ensure you have access to your corporate account.

  3. To access the Google Security Operations application, where customer_subdomain is your customer-specific identifier, navigate to: https://customer_subdomain.backstory.chronicle.security.

Viewing Alerts and IOC Matches

  1. In the navigation bar, select Detections > Alerts and IOCs.

  2. Click the IOC Matches tab.

Searching for IOC matches in Domain view

The Domain column in the IOC Domain Matches tab contains a list of suspect domains. Clicking on a domain in this column opens Domain view, as shown in the following figure, providing detailed information about this domain.

Domain View Domain view

Searching using User view

To navigate to User view, complete the following steps:

  1. From Enterprise Insights view, the Recent Alerts section contains a column listing users who have triggered an alert within the time frame displayed in the Enterprise Insights header. This time frame is adjustable using the time slider bar. You might have to increase the time range using the slider for matches and alerts to appear.
  2. Clicking the user name in this column displays details about the user's activity which might be necessary to investigate the threat further.

Searching using Asset view

To navigate to Asset view, complete the following steps:

  1. From Enterprise Insights view, the Recent Alerts section contains a list of assets that have triggered an alert within the time frame displayed in the Enterprise Insights header. This time frame is adjustable using the time slider bar. You might have to increase the time range using the slider for matches and alerts to appear.

  2. Click on the asset you want to explore further. Google Security Operations pivots to Asset view as shown in the following figure.

    Asset view

  3. The bubbles in the main window indicate the prevalence of the asset. The graph is arranged so events occurring less often are at the top. These low-prevalence events are considered more likely to be suspicious. To zoom in to the events requiring further investigation, use the time range slider in the upper right.

  4. Narrowing the search further can be done using Procedural Filtering. If the Procedural Filtering dropdown menu is not already open, click the icon Filtering Icon near the upper right corner. At the top of the dropdown menu, use the Prevalence slider to filter out normal events and target more suspicious events.

Using the Google Security Operations Search field

Initiate a search directly from the Google Security Operations home page, as shown in the following figure.

Search Field Google Security Operations Search field

On this page, you can enter the following search terms:

  • Hostname displays Domain view
 (for example, plato.example.com)
  • Domain displays Domain view
 (for example, altostrat.com)
  • IP address displays IP Address view
 (for example, 192.168.254.15)
  • URL displays Domain view
 (for example, https://new.altostrat.com)
  • Username displays Asset view
 (for example, betty-decaro-pc)
  • File hash displays Hash view
 (for example, e0d123e5f316bef78bfdf5a888837577)

You do not have to specify which type of search term you are entering, Google Security Operations determines it for you. The results are shown in the appropriate investigative view. For example, typing a username in the search field displays Asset view.

Searching raw logs

You have the option of searching the indexed database or searching raw logs. Searching raw logs is a more comprehensive search, but takes longer than an indexed search.

To further pinpoint your search, you can use regular expressions, make the search entry case sensitive, or select log sources. You can also select the timeline you want using the Start and End time fields.

To conduct a raw log search, complete the following steps:

  1. Type in your search term, and then select Raw Log Scan in the dropdown menu, as shown in the following figure.

    Raw Log Scan menu Dropdown menu showing Raw Log Scan option

  2. After setting your raw search criteria, click the Search button.

  3. From Raw Log Scan view, you can further analyze your log data.